PRACTICE 1

I. You will hear part of a radio talk about an ancient Mesoamerican city and the discoveries that
were made there. For questions 9-17, complete the sentences with a word or short phrase.

The Aztecs believed that Teotihuac n had been constructed by 9.____________________.

Teotihuac n 10.____________________ was bigger than many other ancient cities.
Our inability to read the 11.____________________ limits our knowledge of how people lived in the
city.
Bones discovered in 1989 seem to have belonged to 12.____________________ buried with their
weapons.
The archeologist compares the construction of Mesoamerican pyramids to that of an 13.______________
The way the pyramids were built makes it 14.____________________ to gain access to the central room.
The objects discovered make this the most important 15.____________________ found at Teotihuac n.
If the skeleton had sharpened teeth and precious jewellery, this would indicate 16._________________
In order to shed more light on the city and its civilization, further 17.____________________ must be
done.

II. You will hear an interview with Haile Gebrselassie who recently won an Olympic gold medal.
For questions 18-22, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which best fits what you hear.
18. Runners from Ethiopia and other Rift Valley countries have an advantage because
A Ethiopians like running for its own sake. B they train from an early age.
C their bodies have adapted to their environment. D they were born with unusual physical attributes.

19. Runners from other countries may suffer

A during training in the mountains. B due to bad circulation.
C when they leave high altitudes. D due to insufficient training.

20. Haile is particularly good at distances of 10 kilometres because

A he was obliged to run to school and back.
B he was taught to run at school.
C school in Asela had many long-distance athletes.
D his running style was influenced by carrying books.

21. Altitude plays a part in producing top athletes, but another factor involved is
A that children are encouraged to run by their parents.
B that running is their only means of getting around.
C the influence of the Ethiopian attitude to life.
D the long distances between places.

22. Haile and his equipment sponsor established the Global Adidas running club because
A they wanted to recruit more athletes in Ethiopia.
B they wanted to invest money in the sport in Ethiopia.
C they wanted to see more runners in the hills.
D they wanted to bring athletes from Asela to Addis Ababa.
For questions 1-15, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only
one word in each space. There is an example at the beginning (0).
Celebrity Crossover

It is not surprising that actors want to be pop stars, (0) and vice versa. (1)____________ that is deep
in a part of our brain that most of us manage to keep (2)____________ control, we all want to be pop
stars and actors.

Sadly, there's nothing about the (3)____________ profession that automatically qualifies you for the
other, (4)____________, of course, for the fact that famous actors and singers are already surrounded by
people who never (5)____________ no to them. (6)____________ the whole, pop stars tend to fare
better on screen than their (7)____________ numbers do on CD. Let's (8)____________ it: not being
able to act is no big drawback in Hollywood, whereas not being able to play or sing still tends to count
(9)____________ you in the recording studio.

Some stars do display a genuine proficiency in both disciplines, and a few even maintain successful
careers in both fields, but this just (10)____________ a bad example for all the others. (11)____________
every success, there are two dozen failures. And most of them have no idea (12)____________ terrible
they are. (13)____________ as power tends to corrupt, so celebrity tends to destroy the ability to gauge
whether or not you're making a fool of (14)____________.

But perhaps we shouldn't criticize celebrities for trying to expand their horizons in this way.
(15)____________ there is one good thing about actors trying to sing and singers trying to act, it is that it
keeps them all too busy to write books.

Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word
that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Captain Webb

Captain Matthew Webb is fortunate in being remembered as the first man to swim the English Channel,
rather than the one who later tried, and failed, to plunge through the Niagara Falls. If ever a man
possessed self-confidence, it was Webb; but it was his stubborn (0) refusal (REFUSE) to give up that
eventually proved his (16)_________________ (UNDO).
Unwilling to recognize the Channel crossing as the peak of his career, he went on and on, addicted to
glory, literally swimming himself to death. Webb astonished the British nation on August 25th, 1875,
with a Channel crossing that took a mammoth 21 hours and 45 minutes. He had entered the sea a
merchant-ship captain living in (17)_________________ (OBSCURE), but he emerged in France, stung
by jellyfish and half-dead with (18)_________________ (EXHAUST), a national hero. He was feted,
mobbed and cheered wherever he went; his appearance in the City of London brought business to a
(19)_________________ (STAND). Alarmed by the sudden attention, the normally
(20)_________________ (FEAR) Webb fled to his native Shropshire.
But all this (21)_________________ (STAR) was too much for him, and he made the fatal error of many
a pop star in later years.
Craving (22)_________________ (APPLAUD), he very nearly dissolved himself in a series of marathon
swims for money, including a six-day (23) )_________________ (ENDURE) contest. Then he sailed for
America, where he had a (24)_________________ (PUNISH) schedule of long swims. It was America
that lured Webb to the final act in his tragedy; his crazed attempt to swim the Niagara River beneath the
Falls in June 1883. (25)_________________ (REGARD) of all advice, he dived in from a boat and
subsided forever into the boiling rapids.
You are going to read an article about the Spanish treasure fleets. Seven paragraphs have been
removed from the extract. Choose from paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (27-33). There
is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Gold earrings hung with pearls sank with a Spanish galleon west of Havana, one of the many wrecked by
pirates, storms and treacherous reefs. These and other artefacts offer a wealth of clues about the history of
Cuba's golden past. A glittering fortune in gold and silver has been recovered from the sea floor.
Treasures including luxuries such as rare wood and exotic feathers were shipped from the New World to
Seville by way of Cuba.
27.______________
In a typical year, the first of the two annual treasure fleets left Spain in spring and entered the Caribbean
near the island of Margarita, off Venezuela – a source of pearls and a frequent target of pirates. Here the
flotilla usually split in two, following courses that touched much of the Spanish New World. One convoy
stopped at ports along the Spanish Main, as the English called the northern coast of South America and
the Caribbean islands. Colonists, forbidden to manufacture anything, had to buy even such ordinary items
as cutlery, tools and religious medals from the convoy.
28.______________
In late summer, the merchant ships and war ships sailed to Havana's well-fortified harbour to form the
treasure fleet. Theoretically, the captain general and his warships defended all the merchantmen against
pirates. In reality, storms frequently scattered the flotilla making individual ships vulnerable. Pirates
chose these loners to attack and loot. But Piet Heyn, to the Spanish a pirate, to the Dutch a fabled
admiral, was not satisfied with picking off the stragglers. He wanted the whole treasure.
29.______________
Officials in Havana, who feared this legendary figure more than any other foe, kept watch for him,
especially when a treasure fleet was about to sail for Spain. On August 4, 1628, Heyn and his ships layoff
Cuba, not sure whether the treasure fleet's Mexican component (the Dutch called it the silver fleet) had
left for Havana to link up with the rest of the flotilla. Spanish scout vessels spotted the Dutch and sent
swift courier ships to Veracruz to warn Juan de Benavides, captain general of the treasure fleet. But,
unknown to the Spanish, Heyn had captured one of the courier ships. Now aware that his prey would
soon arrive off Cuba, Heyn waited to pounce.
30.______________
Finally in August, he set sail again. As he neared Matanzas Bay, about 50 miles east of Havana, he saw
more than 30 Dutch warships bearing down on him. 'I continued my course, resolved to die,' Benavides
bravely wrote in a letter to the king. But another officer later testified that Benavides had foolishly led the
fleet into the bay. In his panic, he grounded his own ship and all that followed.
31.______________
‘I jumped into a boat,’ Benavides later recounted, claiming he had arranged in vain for his ship to be set a
fire in his absence. Leoz, seeing his ship boarded by the Dutchmen, ran below, changed into the clothes
of an ordinary sailor, and slipped in among the crewmen who already had laid down their muskets.
32.______________
That done, Heyn put his men aboard the six looted galleons, along with three others, and sent them off to
the Netherlands in the wake of the nine he had captured earlier. Benavides' flagship, so jammed with
cargo that the cannon ports were obstructed, had 29 guns; Leoz's had 22. Neither had fired a shot.
33.______________
The story of Heyn's triumph and Benavides' death is preserved in the General Archives of the Indies in
Seville, Spain. Treasure searchers begin here, sifting through the voluminous records that officials kept
on every flotilla, on every ship and every cargo. Even though the locations are sometimes imprecise, the
searchers press on, going from document to hunch, from the shelves in Seville to the waters off Havana.
A Their pursuers rapidly closed in, anchored or grounded their ships, boarded boats manned with
musketeers and headed for the hapless Spanish ships. The Dutch swarmed aboard Benavides' ship and the
ship of Admiral Don Juan de Leoz, second in command of the flotilla.
B Spain's long reign in the New World is chronicled in archives, tucked away in endless shelves in the
vaulted, echoing halls of a stately 17th century building. Included in these archival treasures are
intriguing charts and maps from the 16th and 17th century, vividly portraying the harbour of Havana.
Here historians and treasure hunters plough through documents which bear witness to Spain's and Cuba's
turbulent marine history.
C The Netherlands hailed Heyn as a hero and cast a commemorative medal from the silver. Long
afterward children sang a song - 'He has won the Silver Fleet, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!' Benavides and
Leoz returned to Spain in disgrace. Leoz was imprisoned for life. Benavides was tried, not for loss of the
treasure fleet but for cowardice, and later executed. Heyn did not last long as a hero. In 1629, while
attacking pirates in the English Channel, he was killed by a cannonball.
D Other ships carrying similar cargoes sailed into Cartagena, Colombia, and then west to Portobelo,
Panama, the collecting point for the silver that flowed in from the mines of Peru. One day, a Dominican
friar in Portobelo counted 200 mules laden with silver, which was stacked in the marketplace 'like heaps
of stones in the street.'
E Flushed with a previous success - they had already captured nine ships of the silver fleet - Heyn and
his men seized half a dozen Spanish ships and put the Spaniards ashore. In the days that followed, the
Dutch sailors inventoried and transferred the 'large amount of plunder present,' which included 46 tons of
silver.
F Hundreds of ships sank in Cuban waters, victims of pirates, war, storms or bad navigation. These
are the ships sought today in the hope of finding the richest prize in the Cuban seas: ships of the Spanish
treasure fleets, the flotillas which carried New World gold, silver and gems to the royal court of Spain.
The flotillas, first sailed into history in the 16th century when Spain's powerful Casa de Contratacion
(House of Trade) ordered merchant ships to travel in convoy, guarded by armed warships.
G As a young privateer in Spanish waters, he had been captured and sentenced to be a galley slave.
Freed in a prisoner exchange, he returned to sea and sought vengeance. In 1623 and 1626, as a Dutch
admiral fighting against Spain for his homeland, he led rampages against Spanish America, sacking the
Cuban port of Matanzas and capturing many ships.
H Scion of a wealthy family of shipbuilders, Juan de Benavides was an admiral who had never fought
a sea battle. He got his appointment through influence, not skill. Benavides, shepherding about 20 ships,
had left Veracruz for Havana in July, but was forced back to port because of what he described as 'an
emergency' that had dismasted his flagship.